[FFML] [Ranma] Seasons for Kindle

[Joseph Palmer]

On 8/13/2012 9:20 AM, Thom Woosley wrote:
> Is this going to be followed by Colors, later on?  I can hardly
> believe I've been reading Ranma fanfic for 18 years....

Yes, Colors too, in time.
I still haven't gotten back to writing, but now that I'm retired (at least 
for a few months) I'll have the time and energy.

>
>
> I like the HTML style guide, and I'd love to see one for e-readers.
> I'm fairly ignorant of how e-books are created, but something I read
> implied that mobi (& epub?) books are just packaged HTML files...
>
> Anyone know if this is true?

Yes, true.

It's built on a very cut-down HTML, with next to no positioning control, but 
the .mobi file itself is a binary, usually compressed, and can contain images.

I used the HTML entities for curly quotes, but it looks like UTF-8 is also 
supported.

The basic process is Write -> Save as HTML -> convert using the free Calibre 
library Software. ( http://calibre-ebook.com/ )

Calibre scans the HTML for indications of chapter breaks and adds them to 
the output file, so there are some things that are not easy to explicitly
do without mucking with the visual presentation, and you know how I am about 
visual presentation.

I have not been able to make a TOC with unstyled links to the chapters - 
Brin's EXISTENCE is formated that way, but the Kindle may allow more style 
sheet influence in Amazon's proprietary format. I'll mess with that format 
too, but it seems like .mobi files are good enough for fanfiction, and can 
be read on many readers, so it may still be my target. Unfortunately, I've 
yet to find a good guide that explains the differences between the formats.

I expect that .mobi files will become like .mp3, and there will be plenty of 
sites that will scrape and archive them. My hit logs show a lot of that kind 
of activity for the audio fanfiction .mp3s.

Laters...

J.





>
>
> On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 7:21 PM, Joseph Palmer <jpalmer at josephpalmer.com> wrote:
>> Perhaps the intersection of FFML readers who both have a Kindle and are
>> interested in reading 17 your old fanfictions* are vanishingly small, but
>> for all 0.0003 of you, I present:
>>
>> Seasons for Kindle: http://goo.gl/BE4k6
>>
>> It actually looks pretty good on the Kindle, and I've managed to get the
>> swipe-to-chapter-start feature to work.
>>
>> I haven't done a cover yet, and along the way I tinkered with a Table of
>> Contents, but I just didn't like the way it looked. Now that wife has
>> returned my Kindle (She was reading David Brin's EXISTENCE on it) I'll do
>> more experimenting.
>>
>> If there is FFML interest, I'll put together a tutorial similar to
>> "HTML Formatting for Prose" for the Kindle.
>>
>> (That's  http://www.josephpalmer.com/fanfic/format/Format2_0.shtml )
>>
>> BTW, It's a .mobi file which can be read on pretty much any e-reader, Kindle
>> is just my test platform.
>>
>> J.
>>
>> *Yes, it really is ove 17 years and 7 months since Winter was released. And
>> Yes, Nabiki. I am going to finish Yellow.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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